


BODIES

by sidnihoudini



Category: Hedley
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-25
Updated: 2006-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:40:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I introduced them,” Joel explains, enunciating the I. A-hundred-and-thirty-an-hour Marion nods and rests one hand on her thigh, fingers relaxed against the thin cotton of her skirt. Joel watches the fabric move, and shakes his head. “At some party. It was dumb.” </p><p>Marion nods before paraphrasing a question with too many overbearing words, overbearing words that Joel has to step through like puddles. All that it alludes to, is, “Has Jacob ever physically or emotionally harmed you, intentionally or not?”</p><p>Joel thinks about the ridiculously Limited Edition six inch vinyl Jacob got him for Christmas.</p><p>Joel thinks about the way that Jacob and Benji stood on the back porch of their mother’s house after excusing themselves from the second half of last year’s Christmas dinner, sharing cigarettes and smiling despite themselves, throwing sucker punches to Joel’s gut whenever the opportunity presented itself. And there were many. Opportunities.</p><p>He hesitates. Marion’s still watching him.</p><p>“No,” He tells her. “Not intentionally.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	BODIES

my mouth is sugar coated with monologue no one wants to buy anymore. maybe we should all just start a club called "somebody else" and in it, we will pick and choose from whom we wish we were, in order to finally live out our dreams. until mom calls us home for dinner. one day i will run. one day i will find the plot. execute the dreams of past fighters in elegant precision. and then, i will be the king of the world. --jakes

.

_contempt and aftertaste;_

“I don’t like him,” He murmurs, arms crossed over his chest, ankles bumping against the sides of the arm chair. She watches him from the other side of the glass coffee table, with her brown eyes and her soft hair, wandering eyes and colored roots. 

She folds her legs, and Joel watches her skirt fall over those knees. Too soft of a voice, and she speaks to him gently, “I understand your position, Joel. How do you feel when you speak to him? Be honest with yourself. Do you feel resentment towards your brother?”

He pushes his tongue against the molar in the very back of his mouth, and grits, “No.”

.

_hello is such a thin word;_

Here’s the truth: Joel hasn’t liked him since the start. Too loud…. Too irritating. Too tall and too short, too many ideas, too artistic. Too ideal.

Benji likes him -- Joel knows that’s an understatement. Joel knows that’s an understatement because Benji smiles too much, Benji talks too much, Benji’s starting to write better songs that he refuses to share, and Joel hates to think of the inspiration.

They met -- Joel grits his teeth -- they met through a mutual friend at some after party in Vancouver: Jacob had wrapped a tour, and Benji had wrapped what felt to Joel like a lifetime. He had initiated it, Joel had fucking initiated it, pushed them together by the shoulders because Max had sworn that Jacob was brilliant.

And he was.

“What’s up,” Benji had laughed, not really caring at the time as he extended his hand.

When Joel came back with the drinks, they were laughing.

.

_paint your perfect day;_

They’re laughing because Jacob is sprawled across the couch in a matching set that he found on sale for nine ninety nine after rooting around in the bargain bin at Zellers, your friendly Canadian department store. A matching set of underwear and a tank top, targeted towards anymore more prepubescent than the one modeling it.

“Check out my rock hard abs,” He laughs, trying to flex his stomach muscles. He quickly settles for his arms instead, grinning around the couch cushion as Benji sets two pizza boxes down on the coffee table, receipt curling at the edges from the heat. Jacob props himself up on one knobby elbow. “You’re not a very good delivery boy, you know. You forgot the drinks.”

Benji laughs, mouthing a ‘shut up’ over his shoulder as he disappears into the kitchen.

Still smiling too wide and too crooked and too honestly, Jacob throws both his legs over the side of the couch and pushes himself into a sitting position with one hand, leaning forward to open the top pizza box with the other.

He rips the receipt off of the lid and reads over their scribbled order just for fun before he reaches into the box for the first piece, just as Benji comes back with the drinks. Two beers because his alcoholism has been curbed for a while, and right now, this is all he wants. Everything in this room is everything he wants.

Jacob peels off the black and red tank top, tossing it over the arm of the couch as Benji drops down into the cushions, handing one bottle over before as he reaches for the bottle opener with his other hand. He’s already dangerously close to Jacob, so it isn’t hard to mouth the top of his shoulder as he passes by, kissing the corner of his lips before moving completely away. Maybe not completely.

Biting a smile into his pizza slice, Jacob watches Benji from the corner of his eyes.

.

_making eyes all by myself;_

Try living with your ex-boyfriend: it’s an impractical idea.

Try working with your ex-boyfriend: it’s even worse.

Try going to the same birthday your ex-boyfriend is invited to: it’s almost an implausibility.

Try introducing your current boyfriend to your ex-boyfriend: the same ex-boyfriend you lived with for your entire life until now, the same ex-boyfriend you worked beside for your entire life until just recently, and the same ex-boyfriend your mother knows too well and doesn’t have to bother inviting to your birthday celebration.

Just try.

Joel fell in love at the age of eighteen, and let it show by twenty one. Benji held out for longer. He fell in love at twenty, but let it rest by four. Joel had spooked at twenty four, had gotten scared while Benji tried to keep it all together, static, tried to keep it stationary and buried in his chest.

But things changed, as they do. And Jacob fell at twenty one, when Benji was twenty six.

So while Joel’s sitting in his new love’s gray white office -- he pays a hundred and thirty dollars an hour to keep her company, he might as well be in love with her -- holding onto the leather sofa, Benji is unlocking the front door to his apartment with a shared key. Joel holds onto the leather sofa because it’s been this long, and he’s still trying not to fall.

When he leaves the office he tries to call Benji’s cell. Like usual, no one picks up.

(This is what Joel has ignored so far.

Jacob’s sitting on the floor, between the bed and the television stand, back flat against the frame of the mattress and box spring when Benji arrives. He’s watching TV with a two frozen dinner trays stacked beside him on the floor, still half ice-covered, and his hair is shower wet, plastered to the top of his head.

He’s sitting on the floor the same way Joel was sitting in his therapist’s office twenty minutes before this, unsuspecting and unprepared, and Benji catches his eyes as he shrugs his jacket off, light and built for those weeks between spring and summer.

Knees on the murky green colored carpet and Benji half smiles as he wraps his arms around Jacob’s shoulders, shirtless and sticky from dried water. Jacob leans forward with a plastic fork in his hand, bending in a half of a half just to press his cheek against Benji’s shoulder, closing his eyes because it heightens his sense of smell. He breathes.

Resolution hangs in the air, but Jacob knows Benji isn’t ready to have it infect.)

“I love you, goddamnit,” Joel hears something whisper in his ear. “I love you for good.”

But he can’t feel the carpet rough beneath his palms, the mattress pressed against the spine forming his back. He ignores the severity that begins to fill his chest out, and unlocks the door to his car. It’s sleek and black and everything Joel dreamed of for years.

.

_the one I love I should destroy;_

“He spends a thousand a month in therapy,” Benji explains, shaking his head as he refills the coffee cup, sour tasting around the rim. “Mom says it just seems to make him worse. I think something she says antagonizes him.”

Jacob stubs his cigarette out in the mismatched, misplaced saucer that he lost under the morning newspaper and shrugs, blowing leftover smoke into the air. The smell is addicting to Benji.

“Don’t think about it,” He shrugs, reaching for the Arts and Entertainment section, rubbing the corner of his eye with the back of his pinky finger. “Cause you know it just makes you crazy.”

Nodding, Benji gulps down half of the lukewarm coffee, and dumps the rest in the sink.

Jacob feels the arm wrapping around his front, under his chin but in front of his throat, fingers coming to rest at the start of his arm. He laughs and tries to squirm, but Benji forces his mouth into the crook of Jacob’s neck anyways.

“What would I fucking do without you, huh?” He asks, and somewhere, Joel hates that they’re beginning to sound alike, to use the same slang and fall into similar dialect. Jacob laughs and leans towards the newspaper, trying to bring Benji with him.

Benji smiles and mouths the back of Jacob’s neck, but keeps both feet on the ground.

“I’m pretty sure you’d be lonely,” Jacob whispers, one hand reaching back to knot in the hair at the top of Benji’s neck, fingers bumping against his scalp and then pressing. Benji smiles harder, pushes harder, loves harder. There’s a crash of silence suddenly, and Jacob has to move the paper so at least there’s a crackle before he clears his throat. Benji closes his eyes, and waits. “Maybe you should call him more often.”

There it is.

“I know I should,” Benji whispers, lips spelling the words out against the nape of Jacob’s neck.

.

_I'm choosing my confessions;_

At one point, during a time and place that now feels like a faded photograph to Joel, they had made sense. Everything had made sense: the color of his shirt, the shake in his hips, the gradient streaked through the sky every morning he opened his eyes.

It had made sense for them to sleep in the same bed, because they could only afford two hotel rooms like that customary piece of fiction wrote. It made sense to share bunks and breakfasts and interviews and liner notes, it made sense for the label to agree that remaining unattached in the public eye would be for the best, would be a great image boost. And, back then, back then business had bled into personality, and everything had made sense in every fucking aspect of the word.

Back then, everything had been its own perfect cover up. Back then they’d made the perfect pair of spies, waiting in the hallways dressed in black and ready to ambush, waiting together with their backs pressed against the wall, because they were the only ones who knew of this secret, this secret that could break faces more than hearts and take on more impact than words ever could. It was a secret in every aspect of the word. Nobody knew except for them. Nobody would have understood it, except for them.

And in the end, how do you break up with a boyfriend that you never _really_ had, anyways?

Benji had always figured they’d both understood. For a long time he had been making excuses for Joel, but then the meetings began to be separately scheduled, Joel looked for new management and found it. Joel started to look more and more like Benji, manipulating, or maybe it was just Benji that was fading away. Joel got movie deals, and for one second, Paul had whispered about how he’d heard the word “solo.”

It never happened, of course. Because Joel would have never been able to deal, though, to Benji’s surprise, Joel could still cope with more than he’d imagined. Because there he was, coping with three pictures from Paramount films, there he was coping with his “really, really good friend, that’s all Benj, I swear it.” She had two specific kinds of addiction. Cocaine, deceit. She and Joel were matched more closely than the two of them had ever been, Benji had come to realize.

Benji had come to realize that he’d been left out in the cold, shut out, pushed out, fucked out. And yeah, he’d been angry -- so fucking angry -- for some time, for a long time. But he got over it. He got over it like he got over his childhood and the first record deal that fell through, he got over it because Joel was his brother, Joel was his brother and they still had the label to deal with, the clothing line to deal with. The band to deal with.

The band hadn’t been the same in a long time, and once Benji began to think of it, it started to fade away anyways. Everything began to fade, like time had just been cut through the cord and all of a sudden it was Joel who was dictating that their MTV contract couldn’t be renewed, Joel dictating that it was because he’d just signed some exclusive deal with VH1.

Fucking VH1.

The last album -- and that’s what it had been, the last -- was recorded in Vancouver, because Benji couldn’t look at Los Angeles anymore. Couldn’t look at LA and not see the girl and the drugs, and the deals. He had grown up maybe, maybe that’s all it was. A different outlook, a different shape to his eyes. LA was no longer the place he needed to be, because he had been there, and it had imploded in on itself, on his imagination.

And that’s around the time that Joel introduced him to Jacob.

.

_I'm riddled by you;_

“I introduced them,” Joel explains, enunciating the I. A-hundred-and-thirty-an-hour Marion nods and rests one hand on her thigh, fingers relaxed against the thin cotton of her skirt. Joel watches the fabric move, and shakes his head. “At some party. It was dumb.” 

Marion nods before paraphrasing a question with too many overbearing words, overbearing words that Joel has to step through like puddles. All that it alludes to, is, “Has Jacob ever physically or emotionally harmed you, intentionally or not?”

Joel thinks about the ridiculously Limited Edition six inch vinyl Jacob got him for Christmas.

Joel thinks about the way that Jacob and Benji stood on the back porch of their mother’s house after excusing themselves from the second half of last year’s Christmas dinner, sharing cigarettes and smiling despite themselves, throwing sucker punches to Joel’s gut whenever the opportunity presented itself. And there were many. Opportunities.

He hesitates. Marion’s still watching him.

“No,” He tells her. “Not intentionally.”

.

_let these swift roads destroy themselves;_

Benji’s half asleep when Jacob crawls on top of him, into him, pushing a cellphone against the palm of his hand. Yawning, Benji’s fingers wrap around the edge, even though his brain doesn’t make the connection.

“Joel left a message while I was in the shower,” Jacob whispers, resting his head in the pillow beside Benji’s head, letting his skull sink. “Something about the band.”

Laughing wearily, Benji drops the phone into the sheets at his hip, and grits out, “What, he wants to reform?” with laughter edging his words. Jake’s mouth twitches into a half smile, but he picks up the phone regardless, digging it from the blankets to press it back against the curve of Benji’s hand.

Benji relents, letting his grip tighten. He also gets two of Jacob’s fingers still pressed against the side of the phone, and a mouth on the side of his face, warm and fucking right, a mouth that nobody can take away from him.

“You phone for me,” He whispers finally, eyes closing, head already nodding back into the mattress.

Jacob slings a leg over Benji’s hip and shakes his head, leaning in to brush the hair off of Benji’s forehead, fingers careful because he knows the boy is in pieces.

“I’m not your secretary,” He whispers, still smiling. “And you don’t have narcolepsy,” Benji’s eye cracks open, and he begins to laugh despite himself. “So call your brother. He deserves it.”

.

_can you feel the way I've grown and disconnected?;_

This is the first time they see each other in six months, and it’s at Jacob’s assistance.

( “Steve called me last night.”

“What the fuck does he want now?”

“There’s a release party for Epitaph next week, he says it’s a good photo op.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“We’ve been over this, Joel.”

“Then please, _Benj,_ refresh my memory.”

Belligerence to antagonism corrupted by resentment, and this is what you get. )

There’s a fierce love that Benji wants to punch into the back of Joel’s skull. He wants to crack through the bone as thick as their father’s was, and scream, scream so fucking loud: _you_ said you couldn’t do it, _you_ said no while I was fighting for everything. This is _your_ fault. It’s your fault that I’m happy, and it’s _your_ fault that you’re so fucking miserable. Don’t make me apologize for what you left behind, because I won’t say a word.

But he can’t tell him, and he won’t. So here’s what he does instead.

“You’re fucking cracked sometimes,” He mutters, shaking his head, a nervous laugh on his lips as he pulls his jacket on, arm by arm. Joel’s standing in the doorway that separates the hallway and the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest and eyes terrified. Benji’s eyesight is foggy all of a sudden, and he realizes that he can’t do it, he can’t see past the implications that Joel makes, the running commentary Joel keeps glued to his forehead.

He can’t see it because all Benji wants to do is just… be okay. Just be okay for once in his fucking life without something blocking it, like a clogged artery. The resentment that Benji feels twisting his throat is fueled by anger, by trepidation. By confusion.

“So is that it?” Joel snaps, pushing away from the doorframe to take the first step forward.

Benji’s laughter is cut off by the sound of fabric, the two halves of his jacket being jerked together, the pieces buttoned up with fingers that are shaking from anger. He raises his eyebrows at Joel and murmurs, words sour like coffee --

“This has been it for a long time.”

\-- as he shoves past Joel, knocking him against the wooden door frame. Joel has to step sideways to lean against the paneled wall, he has to balance himself before he can listen to Benji as he storms down the hallway. 

Joel thinks of Jacob, so desperate to make it right.

“See you Wednesday, then!” Joel shouts after him, pushing away from the wall with one elbow, bottom lip caught between his teeth. He hears the kitchen door slam, knocking back against the frame.

Joel has been desperate to do the same thing.

.

_the answer to each moment is yes and the question: can you live with that?_

“Benji’s captivated with him. It’s fucking disgusting, they’ve only known each other for a year, a year and a half. He’s known me his entire life. I’m the one who’s been there for his entire life.”

She’s wearing a light blue colored skirt today, and there’s a print over it, but Joel can’t make it out from this far away. It’s too small, and he’s too preoccupied. Running the palm of his hand over the couch cushion, he glares at her for misunderstanding the implication of his words.

“The issues that you have with Jacob are related to more than you think,” She explains, in that stupid soft therapist’s voice. He begins to grind his back teeth. “And it’s not your fault that you don’t understand, but you have to speak to yourself, to me. Do you remember what it felt like when your father left?”

His heart begins to beat faster, and he feels his palms moisten.

“It’s not the same,” He tries to cut in, tries to explain. “Benji isn’t my father.”

She writes something down in his file.

.

_love is like a punishment;_

Jacob spends a lot of time in the doorway that separates the kitchen from the living room, the cheap mint colored phone cord wrapped around his middle with his forehead pressed flat against the wooden beam. It holds him up, sometimes. Steady.

Awkward sunlight comes through the window and catches dust in the dining room.

“You know it’s not your fault,” He murmurs, closing his eyes, listening to the static crackle, building between his shoulder blades and into a mess he knows he just can’t clean up. “Yeah, you knew… you knew he’d… no, I know. Now? Okay, okay yeah. You said that already, Benj. I’ll see you when you get here. Yeah, okay. Bye.”

Click. 

If he had known from the start that he was going to be in a relationship with two people, he might have reconsidered before winding himself into the situation so tightly, so resolutely that now, standing in the kitchen, he knows that nothing can break him free.

He hangs up the phone, and he thinks about it.

But he might have not.

.

_I only want to see the light behind your eyes;_

Because of the tile, the light in the shower cubicle is tinted a malleable green, and it goes like this:

“Goddamn,” Benji breathes, with the smell of shower water in his nose, the taste of it fastened to the inside of his lips. His eyes are closed because the soap stings, he flattens his palm against the base of Jacob’s shoulder blade.

Jacob with the hand fastened to his shoulder blade opens his eyes and slicks his palm over Benji’s eyes, washing away the soap he doesn’t rub in. His eyes are green and illuminate through the water, the water that’s everywhere, hitting the back of his skull, dripping over his forehead and into those eyes. One corner of his mouth curls into a half smile, and he asks, “Goddamn what?”

“Goddamn you,” Benji mouths, looking the same way, blinking with red-rimmed eyes as he leans down to mouth the column of Jacob’s throat.

They press back against the tiled wall: palm and shoulder, and the soap doesn’t sting as much as it could, dripping down Benji’s throat and arms, diluted with water on the middle of his back.

.

_step inside this place and own me;_

But it’s Wednesday outside of the shower, and the mirror is still foggy but Benji rubs product through his hair anyways, fingers against his scalp, towel slung low around his hips. Jacob’s murky reflection is in the background as he shakes his head, the last drops of shower water flying through the air.

“I’ll call Steve and tell him you’ve got the Bird Flu, then I won’t have to go,” Benji offers, watching himself in the mirror as he speaks towards the body moving back and forth behind him, walking through the shadows of the bathroom.

Jacob laughs as he pulls a white cotton t-shirt on, fabric sticking to his shoulders, his stomach. Benji wants to feel the damp skin he knows is underneath it, to pull the t-shirt away and let it drop back. He wants to do everything.

“If you didn’t want to go, why’d you tell him you would?” He asks, that shadow of a smile still on his face.

Eyes trailing back to watch eyes in the mirror, Benji shrugs, presses flat against the crown of his head with his palms as he drags a chunk of hair forwards, over his forehead. He scrutinizes, shakes his head, and lets it fall back.

“Because…” He trails off, watching himself, watching as Joel stares back at him. “Because we’re still the twins from Good Charlotte, I guess. Because he’s still my brother.”

Suddenly Jacob is right beside him, right fucking beside him, with his thumb pressed lightly underneath Benji’s bottom lip, fingers resting on his cheek, with Jacob’s mouth on the curve of his shoulder. Benji turns his head to watch, finds Jacob staring back at him with these eyes, these fucking eyes that are so green and so faultless and so fucking beautiful.

“He’ll be okay by himself, you know,” He whispers, nodding carefully. “He’s not the only person you have to save anymore.”

Benji nods, and knots his fingers in Jacob’s hair.

.

i am stone. i am a rock. i am a peninsula (almost an island). nothing will ever break me. most of you will get close. have a shot. take it. most of you will miss (i saw the matrix so blow me. again). for those of you that hit and / or graze me. i'll be pissed. but it will wear off. and then i'll be fine. for those of you that twist the knife inside. i'll be mad. pretty mad actually. i'll probably just call my best friends and they'll kill you. and then i'll have a cocktail. good. great. it's late. fuck new york. and the rest of north america. cuba here i come. no. fuck cuba. skye sweetnam. here i come. be my valentine. yes for crushes. no for idiots. 

.

_simple, like flipping a coin;_

Jacob lights a cigarette, inhales as Joel breaks through the crowd with a half smile on his face and a full drink in his hand. He’s watching Benji like he always watches Benji, and he can’t see Jacob so he smiles all the way and watches Benji some more.

“You’re here,” He says like he’s surprised, and Jacob isn’t sure if that’s Benji’s hand on his back, or a woman who just wants her own way. Joel notices the smoke trail filtering through the air, and then he’s focusing in on Jacob’s face, catching his mouth before it drops all the way. He’s been practicing for a long time, now, almost two years. “Both of you are.”

Jacob pulls the cigarette from the bump of his lip and smiles his hello, and a woman pushes through the crowd around them but the hand stays on his back -- Benji watches Jacob like Joel is watching Benji. So defenselessly.

The ache in the air resonates, settling into their chests and stomachs, and as Jacob takes a deep drag of nicotine, Benji reaches for a passing tray and takes whatever balances on it. It’s the color of tanned skin and as he swallows twice, Jacob feels the sun burning the backs of his thighs.

A photographer passes by, so the two-alikes pose and Jacob disappears, hiding behind a group of black haired women in cocktail dresses, flicking their tattoo manicures over the rims of their champagne flutes, not noticing the way that, before Jacob leaves, he drops the butt of his cigarette into the closest one.

As he fades into the atmosphere Benji lets his arm hang around Joel’s shoulders and they smile, pretending for the cameras like they always have. Joel may have made the movies but Benji is the better actor, and always has been. Remembers when it was so hard to not touch Joel all the time, how there was always someone with something in their hand to catch them, how he could hide it in the daylight but had no hope in hell when the hotel room door closed.

“Your last album wasn’t that bad,” The photographer tells them, as he changes the battery on his camera, sliding the dead one into his front shirt pocket. Benji smiles through his glass and nods slightly, watching the bubbles pop against the side. He doesn’t know what it is, probably imported something or sparking whatever else.

Joel falls into easy conversation with the photographer. His name is Thomas and he’s an intern working for Alternative Press. He tells Joel that there’s been a lot of talk around the office of the band putting out a new comeback album. Joel doesn’t deny, but refuses to answer.

“It’s not likely,” Benji interrupts, smiling at Thomas when he glances.

Thomas shrugs and snaps the battery into place. “Whatever, man. I’m just sayin’ that’s what I heard, you know? Anyway, put your arm back around his shoulders. Broken up bands photographed together are always the biggest sellers.”

Benji sets his wine glass on the table out of shot for the fans. Not for himself, and not for Jacob, not for Joel. He does it for the fans because he doesn’t want to deal with the running commentary that has followed him for the last ten years coming.

.

_pretty-boy front man;_

Joel is desperate while Benji is distracted, half-laughing through interviews that all but allude to a “reunion” tour. He doesn’t much see the point in a tour with that kind of a name, anyways, and knows that they don’t deserve it. It’s only been two and a half years, and not that many people cared in the first place.

Across to room, Joel does the same thing.

“Maybe when I’m dead broke,” Benji smiles into the camera, eyes shifting back to catch Joel on the other side of the room, working down the opposite half-junket. Benji turns back to the camera as the reporter asks about a solo career. Benji laughs, and shakes his head. “You see what that idea did to my brother, right?”

The camera jerks to the left, zooms past Benji’s shoulder and in tight to Joel’s face, his profile as he gives his heart to a girl with a microphone in her hand. Joel’s tense skin, Joel’s hesitant smile, Joel’s black makeup, Joel’s tired eyes. His attention flickers to the side, and they know that they’ve been caught.

Joel raises his eyebrows quick, a jerk, and turns back to his own reporter.

The camera focuses in on Benji’s face again. He rubs the back of his neck at the question.

“Am I happy?” He repeats, his forehead wrinkling. One half a moment more before he smiles, letting his hand drop to hip. “Absolutely.”

The camera light flickers to red - Benji picks up his wine glass again, and gulps.

.

_you caught the light again in that perfect way;_

Benji sees Jacob in the crowd later that night, after his eyes have gone blurry from the three or four (six?) glasses of wine, when his lips are loose but his nerves are still bundled tight. He’s laughing with an Epitaph producer, Tim introduced them two or three years ago when he was just a bumbling intern. Benji can’t remember his name. Mark? Scott? Something ridiculous… Igby?

He smiles because Jacob’s laughing, imitating someone or something, and Benji knows it because his hands are jerking back and forth, over his head and back to his stomach.

When his brain begins to trip he leans against a wall, decorated with red light bulb lamps and pretentious pieces of art. But through the murky air all that he can see are those hands, that stomach and goddamn, that smile. He’s jealous of Mark Scott Igby, like Joel is of Jacob: unintentionally.

.

_you broke me bodily;_

Joel’s washing his hands when Benji comes in, going straight into a stall with a hand in his hair and his shirt crooked at the seams. He closes the door and locks it. When he comes out, Joel’s already watching him through the mirror, stained with shaken wet hands and fingerprints, soap scum and rough paper towels. Benji braces himself against the stall next to the one he was just in, shakes his head again, and pulls himself back together.

“You okay?” Joel asks despite himself, shaking the water from his hands, reaching for a paper towel.

Benji nods and starts towards the sink next to Joel’s, walls down because this is how it used to be.

“Forgot how to deal with everything,” He manages, half laughing, and the booze doesn’t make him drunk like it used to, but it slows him down, putting his brain into some kind of instant replay mode, putting his mouth through a fire grinder. “Now I can’t really remember… anything, I guess.”

He laughs nervously and turns the sink on. Joel watches Benji’s eyelashes against his cheeks.

“You love him?” Joel whispers, suddenly exposed like Benji is to what they both thought was recessive alcoholism, and it echoes against the linoleum, ricochets from the ceiling and smashes the concrete sink into pieces.

Benji’s eyes are bleary, but he still meets Joel’s in the mirror. 

“More than you realize,” He manages, soft little sad smile twitching his lips up at the corners.

The paper towel in Joel’s hands is rough because it’s cheap, but it’s easier to watch his hands rubbed raw than to meet Benji’s eyes in the mirror. He nods but keeps his head down, mouth relaxed because he doesn’t have anything else to say.

“I love you too, you know that,” Benji continues, sounding shaky, like he’s walking on a pair of stilts over coals made of bone and eye color. “Just because things are different between us doesn’t mean that we can’t be like…”

Joel laughs like it’s funny and reaches over to turn off the tap on Benji’s sink. Benji’s hands are still covered in gummy pink soap.

“Can’t be like how we used to be?” Joel whispers, pushing the wet paper towel into Benji’s hands, twisting it against the tattooed skin. Benji doesn’t say anything, but he watches Joel’s reflection, he watches Joel’s reflection because it’s easier than watching the real thing.

He’s drunk but he isn’t stupid, and he means it so he whispers, “You changed things. Not me.”

The words haven’t even reached the edge of the sink before Joel is leaving, shaking his head and twisting his wrists, and letting go of Benji’s palms.

It antagonizes Benji like all of those times before it, chewing his lip as he throws the paper towel into the garbage and wipes his soap sticky hands against the backs of his pant legs. He doesn’t see Joel shaking his head and turning back around, a decision made as he walks towards Benji with a determination that hasn’t surfaced since the beginning, when it was only radio interviews and low rung festivals.

.

_you'll never be more than alive;_

“Benji’s a good guy, a really good guy,” Igby is agreeing as he runs a hand through his hair, pieces falling into his eyes and against the bone structure of his cheeks. Jacob smiles against the rim of his glass and nods, swallowing the booze through his teeth because he just can’t shake the expression. “He’s gotta be around here somewhere, yeah?”

Jacob nods and pulls the glass away just long enough to do a quick scan of the room, packed to absolute capacity with people Jacob’s never met before. He can’t see him immediately, so he turns back to Igby and says, “Somewhere.”

“Good guy,” Igby concedes, still musing as he sips at his Coke. “A really good guy.”

.

_take the plan and spin it sideways;_

“What the fuck are you thinking,” Benji gasps, back against the inside of the stall door, with Joel’s fingers knotted in his hair, Joel’s mouth wet on his neck.

Every moment he ever made himself resist comes up and knocks him in the back of the head, throwing his murky skull forward, pressing his chin into the top of his chest. Joel’s hands are on his stomach, one underneath his t-shirt, one up the back of his jacket.

“Tell me you don’t miss it,” Joel dares, broken and desperate to make him see -- broken and desperate enough to see for himself what he pushed away too many years ago. “Don’t lie to me, Benji, don’t lie…”

And he’s dazed but he isn’t disoriented. He wraps a hand around the back of Joel’s neck, and manages to pull him backwards without pushing him away.

“Joel,” He murmurs, tears in his eyes because he can see them, he can see the cracks that start between Joel’s toes, the cracks that travel up his legs and through his stomach, that go deep throughout his chest cavity, and all the way up and into his brain. Benji doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know how to say anything other than this, so he says it again, voice soft, “Joel.”

And then Joel’s crying, not sobbing but his eyes are wet and pressed into the bone of Benji’s shoulder, because see, the crack has lengthened from the pressure, it’s broken from top to bottom and split right down the middle. Every second minute hour day before this has weakened his knuckles and his knees, and it comes down to this. Everything comes down to this.

This desperation that Joel can feel resonating in his fingertips.

Benji wraps his arms around Joel’s shoulders and pulls, jerking him forwards, falling against the unstable wall behind them, cheap and manipulated into a bathroom stall. He presses his mouth into the corner where Joel’s neck meets his shoulder and he breathes, feels his eyes beginning to prick in the corners because he can feel the hundred-and-thirty-an-hour bleeding out of every pore in Joel’s body, the desperation and the anxiety.

“I hate him,” Joel whispers, fingers pinching at Benji’s sides. Benji lets it throb.

He gathers Joel up like a blanket and wraps his arms further around. Benji lets him splinter.

.

_how I feel like a beautiful child;_

Taking the stairs two at a time, Jacob balances his drink in one hand and keeps his belt around his hips with the other. It’s quarter to three and already he’s sick of the lights flashing in his eyes and the girls with their thin hands wrapping around the insides of his elbows. Igby left to corner some new and unsigned artist by the bar, and it gave Jake the opportunity to grab another beer.

“Jesus Christ,” He laughs quietly and to himself, as he narrowly misses running into two girls thin like heroin and high like cocaine. They’re stumbling around like giraffes, their knees knocking together and fingers entwined -- they should be in coffins. Jacob takes a sharp right and ends up directly under another light, quick and blinking and oh so fucking agitating.

The girls totter off down the stairs, and if Jacob closes his eyes he can make the lights go away, so he falls back against a plush sofa and sloshes beer over the inside of his hand.

His eyes have been closed for longer than he had expected them to be when someone runs a hand through his hair and jerks him fully awake. More of his drink spills.

“Fuck,” He murmurs, eyes bleary and red-rimmed as he sits upright. Benji’s above him, he looks more tired than Jacob feels, his skin strained and lips twisted. Jacob leans down to set his beer on the floor because it’s flat anyways. He asks, “What’s up?”

.

_thought that maybe I'd really love being alone;_

Joel washes his face again and rinses off his hands. He stares at himself in the mirror until it gives him a stomach ache. And when it’s all done, he smoothes the wrinkles from the front of his t-shirt, straightens his jacket, and walks towards the bathroom exit.

He manages to get into the hallway before a girl, her credit card, and “face powder” go in.

“Fuck,” He whispers, shaking his head, his head that feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, his head that constantly screams at him for how terrible of an idea the entire night was, how he just wrote his own history, because this is the third time that everything will change.

He sees them before he leaves. Benji’s not so drunk anymore, just weary, angled into the corner of a couch half-covered with people that Joel cares nothing about. Jacob’s tucked under his arm, head tipped back with a soft smile on his face, because Benji is saying something.

Joel leaves before they do, but he has an idea to how the night plays out.

.

_no apology cause my urge is genuine;_

When he sees Marion the day after, she comments on the smile pulling his mouth funny.

“Imagine that, huh?” He asks, quietly, and this smile is not a happy one, it’s soft and timid and still like his voice, but it’s a start and it’s sincere, and that’s all that counts.

She’s wearing plaid today, and Joel notices when he sits down on the leather couch opposite, watching as she folds her legs together and smiles back at him. He likes Marion. She’s good like his mom.

.

_so just kiss me and let my hair messy itself in your fingers;_

Benji wakes up with a tight pressure between his eyes, and Jacob nearly half sprawled over his chest. Groaning, one heavy hand comes up to push the hair from his sticky forehead, back over his skull and against the pillow he rests on. Jacob shifts on top of him completely and cringes when the sun hits his face, deciding to turn back and bury into the blankets above Benji’s shoulder.

“Fucking sun,” Jacob groans, mouth wet against Benji’s shoulder, eyes stuck closed with sleep.

Yawning in agreement, Benji’s hands sneak to Jacob’s hips as he falls back asleep.

.

_breathe and bathe me, just be and save me;_

After shuffling around the kitchen for forty minutes, Benji changes from the pants he fell asleep in last night into a pair of shorts that won’t slip down his hips when he goes jogging. He kisses the back of Jacob’s neck, grazing his teeth against the skin to get a reaction, grabs his cell phone and keys from the counter, and says he’ll be back in forty.

Jacob pours himself another cup of coffee and smiles at Benji’s back, folded behind the closed front door. Jake listens to Benji walking down the front stairs of the house as he drinks, bitter taste dulled with two and a half heaping spoonfuls of sugar and a third of a carton of milk.

.

_I think I used to belong here;_

Benji’s half jogging down the street but mostly preoccupied with the shuffle on his iPod when Joel pulls into the driveway, sunglasses folded into the V neck of his t-shirt. When Benji looks up he notices the car idling, begins to walk towards the open driver’s side window as the exhaust pipe cuts its smoke.

“Hey,” Benji greets awkwardly, uncertainly, pausing. Joel smiles and means it as he unbuckles his seatbelt.

He nods and answers with a little, “Hey, Benj,” paused in the middle just like that.

“I was just going…” He trails off and waves down the road with one hand, then motions to the ear buds resting around his neck. Joel smiles and Benji watches the sun hit his eyes, reflect the brown into a murky gold. Something in him clicks and says, _oh. I remember now._

Joel squints and shrugs, “I wanted to talk to Jacob, actually. Is he in?”

Almost laughing at the absurdity of the situation, Benji shifts from foot to foot and eyes Joel, doing a quick scan of the backseat. This is bizarre. Very, very bizarre. “Maybe. Do you have plans to murder him?”

“Not quite,” Joel laughs, and he really laughs so Benji’s shoulders relax, his arms fall slack and he feels his stomach unknot, he feels the last two years unraveling like Joel’s smile. “If it’s a bad time I can come back later…”

Benji shakes his head and tries not to raise his eyebrows too much.

“No, no,” He shrugs, pushing the ear bud back into his ear. “He was just having lunch when I left.”

As Joel climbs out of the car Benji turns around and begins to walk backwards, knees relaxed and eyebrows twisted as he watches his brother shift. Joel smiles at him and moves forward, towards the path that leads up to the front door.

Benji waits until he’s ringing the doorbell, and then turns around to make up for lost time.

.

_when will you be worthy of your good side;_

“Benji actually just left, he-“

Joel shakes his head and fiddles with the sunglasses on his chest, leaving a fingerprint on the left shade, half smiling when Jacob looks appropriately unconvinced.

“I know, I ran into him when I pulled up,” He gestures back to the driveway, to his car and to the street that Benji disappeared down. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Nodding, Jacob leans against the door and tugs at the back of his boxers, pulling them back up to his hips. Joel clears his throat and squints down the street, into the glare of the sun and the reflection in the neighbour’s front window.

“I just wanted to…” Joel gestures with his hands but ends up shoving them into his pockets, nods towards Jacob but ends up looking at the floor. “I’ve been pretty shitty to you without much of an explanation.”

Managing a smirk, Jake nods and leans harder against the door, letting his hip bump against the knob and inside of the lock. 

“You don’t need to explain, man,” He shrugs, letting his finger trace the elastic tracking his tailbone, wrapping around his hips. Joel chews at his bottom lip and they’re similar enough that Jacob knows it means ‘thank you.’ “I mean it when I say that, but you gotta…” He trails off and his legs jerk, like excess energy trying to escape. “You gotta realize it fucks Benji up more than it does to me. I don’t know you, really. He does.”

Joel nods and wipes his bottom lip with the edge of his thumb, says, “I know. It’s just… there’s this dynamic to our relationship that…”

“You don’t need to explain,” Jacob repeats, but this time his eyes are closed like he’s braced against a jolt of shock. Joel chews his bottom lip and shifts from foot to foot, hands still crammed into his front pockets. Jacob laughs breathlessly and shakes his head, “I don’t… the only relationship I give a shit about is the one I have with Benji. That’s it.”

That’s it, Joel thinks, turning back when he hears shoes scuffing pavement. Benji’s head disappears behind an oversized shrub before it reappears, coming up the driveway, winding between the front of Joel’s car and the back of his own. He smiles up at the two people at the top of the stairs. Jake pushes away from the door and Joel half-waves.

“I gotta get going,” Joel lies, pulling the sunglasses from his shirt. Jacob watches, and wonders about those hands. His eyes flash in Jacob’s direction and they say _thanks_ so Jacob nods, listening as Joel speaks in Benji’s direction, “Late for an appointment.”

Benji laughs breathless like Jacob did at the face of truth and nods, starting up the stairs as Joel begins down them. He catches Jacob’s eyes when Joel is halfway back to his car and raises his eyebrows.

Jacob’s face reads: don’t worry about it.

Benji doesn’t.

.

Its just me realizing there is a point in time in all of our lives in which a turning point occurs. Of which innocence is broken. Of which compensation for what we are lead to believe is a loss becomes an enemy to ourselves all on its own. It will kill you if you let it. I hate the way it looks at me as if I was broken. How far will I run. Probably not far. I'll probably run out of breath or get a cramp. Maybe twist an ankle or trip on something. Stupid fuck.

.

_somewhere sometime all things will be fine;_

They don’t record a new album, and nobody reforms the band. Joel does a photo spread for Alternative Press to run alongside the group of photos taken at the Epitaph release party, and although it generates a buzz, it isn’t much more than that. He sees Marion every Wednesday, she jacked her price up to one forty but to Joel it doesn’t matter much.

Benji’s figured it out, a solution to this equation he’s had running for two maybe three years. He wipes the palm of his hand across the thigh of his pants, sticky from water bottle condensation, and leans against the wall of the smoky club.

It reminds him of a lot of things, during times like these, when Jacob is throwing himself across the stage and there is a legion of fans that would follow him if they could. It reminds him of an alternate universe that was real only a few years ago. He could count the number on one hand. The smell in the air, the grit of the floor against the soles of his shoes, the sound and the feeling of the music in the pit of his stomach, in the caps of his knees.

He’d live here forever if he could, in this moment, where everything matches and fucking makes sense, when there is no confusion and he can see it: the lights and the sound the music makes when it reverberates against the walls. The pull of the muscles in Jacob’s shoulders, the strain of his throat and the sharp bone of his hips. He can match every feeling to a memory, every piece of skin to the single moment it sparked underneath Benji’s fingers. He can divide everything up, and put most anything back together. Maybe this geography thing is paying off, anyways.

.

_we are left standing to face what is left of concrete and honey._

Her skirt is mauve and longer than the rest. Joel can see her knees moving underneath, shifting around and repositioning. He runs a hand through his hair as he talks, and it isn’t about Benji anymore, it isn’t about Jacob and it isn’t about antipathy. It’s about him, his life, and yeah, maybe how he fucked it up, but mostly how he came out alive.

And, for right now, right this very second, he feels fucking fantastic.


End file.
